If you, like me are often tempted to (and actually do) reach around the still moving blade of your not so new bandsaw, then you might consider to give this tool a brake (for its birthday, Christmas, or whatever).

The blade of newer bandsaws stops spinning quickly once the machine is turned off, according to European Standards ten seconds or less are considered as a "reasonable short time" for a woodworking machine to stop after it has been switched off *. My INCA bandsaw needed about 13 seconds, and also 10 seconds would still annoy me.

So I retrofitted the bandsaw with a foot-operated bicycle disk brake. When I step on the pedal a microswitch first cuts off power, which triggers the main switch off too. The foot one millimeter or so further down actual braking starts and the saw stops as fast as I want. Once I take foot pressure off the pedal the microswitch closes again, but as the saw's main switch is off

Of course, a footbrake is not an overwhelming safety feature, it only prevents from getting impatient after switching off the saw, and as a side-effect I also find it nice that there is no more need to stretch my arm to reach the off-button (which a couple of years ago I have retrofitted with a "stop paddle" over the tiny stop switch).

And here a sound sample of the brake to compare the time the saw needs to stop completely - actually more than 15 sec. without braking down to less than 1 second when hitting the brake with violence which doesn't make much sense though because braking smoothly stops it also in about 2 seconds.